


axis

by thisstableground



Series: palette [4]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Blow Jobs, First Time, Fluff, Frottage, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, as per the rest of the series, autistic alex, but only a very tiny amount, not hugely relevant in this chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 05:59:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10456989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground
Summary: “Hold the fuck up, Alex. I have no idea what you think happened, but if I’ve been weird today it’s really not because of you. You didn’t do anything.”“I…oh. I didn’t?”John shakes his head. “Uh, can I ask what it is that you thought you did, exactly?”Alex looks spooked. “Um. Nothing?”[John has drunken realisations and sober reactions. Alexander isn't complaining.][Part of series, can be read alone. Set before Percussion if you're following chronologically.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> [a/n: read the tags and heed the tags, it's all just blowjobs and soft emotions from here on out. 
> 
> EDIT it may unsurprise you to know that i've just been writing without much of a plan BUT i have just now decided what order this series should go in. have edited summaries/series page accordingly but if you want then it goes 1.aphasia 2.voiceless 3.axis 4. percussion, though all of them work as separate single-chapter fics too.]

The army travels, the army moves from tents to the stables and storage-houses of kindly citizens, the army takes whatever shelter it can get.

Sometimes, the army gets lucky and finds itself staying two-to-a-room at a small group of inns. It’s almost unprecedented: a real bed for each man, a reasonable supply of food and most importantly, only a few flights of stairs between them and so much ale.

It'd be rude not to celebrate, so the four of them are several pints deep. Mulligan and Lafayette have been arm-wrestling for the past twenty minutes, both unwilling to admit defeat. John and Alex are having an excited conversation which, though deeply passionate, neither of them can actually hear because both of them are yelling at the same time.

“-but it’s the whooole thing,” Alex is shouting, throwing his arms out in an expansive gesture. One flailing hand thumps against the burly arm of a stranger stood beside him: the man immediately shoves him away with a grunted “watch yourself.”

John’s hackles are instantly up. “Maybe _you_ should watch your tone.”

The man squares up to him. He’s, wow, he’s pretty big, but John could take him. John could take anyone in this bar, just let them try it. “Don’t step to me, kiddo, you’re out of your depth.”

Alex is immediately at his back. “John could take anyone in this bar, just fuckin’, you just fuckin’ try it!”

Alex is a solid guy and an awesome friend and Alex knows what is _up_.

“Jeez, who’s letting all these children stay out past bedtime?” the guy mutters. John snarls and leaps forward. Alex whoops in approval, but then there’s something intercepting him and suddenly he’s being hauled over Mulligan’s shoulder like a sack of flour, while Lafayette grabs Alex’s jacket collar to drag him out into the stairwell.

“Yeah, you’d better run!” John yells, upside-down. Mulligan drops him unceremoniously to the ground as the door closes behind them. “Oof. Y’all have no sense of, thing. No - Alex, what am I saying? No sense of, of-“

“Of FIGHT!” Alex yells. He grabs John’s hand and punches both their arms up into the air, victorious. “We won!”

Lafayette snorts. “Yes, that’s definitely what just happened.”

“We lost. Because Mulligan has no sense of fight,” says John, leaning round Alex to prod Mulligan in the chest. Jesus, the man is just a wall of muscle. He does it again to confirm. “Were you scared, Mulligan?”

“Laurens, I could’ve crushed that guy’s skull with one hand if _I_ was the one who wanted to start shit,” says Mulligan. “He was taller than the two of you stacked on top of each other. I’m saving you from yourselves. Stop poking me if you wanna keep that finger, man.”

Mulligan steps back, out of range. Laurens overbalances, and since he’s still holding Alex’s hand, both of them topple over. They flounder around in a tangle, trying to figure out whose legs are whose. Mulligan and Lafayette are both too busy losing their shit to help them up, those assholes.

 “We wo-o-on!” crows Alex again, face pressed into John’s neck. John feels warm all over.

 

***

 

“-Mulligan, keeps the beers full again and the ladies he’s pullin’ ‘em, check it! I’m gonna get wreckeded with Lafayette-ded -”

Alex is spitting some kind of nonsense outside their door, a dead weight leaning on John as he fumbles through the door. When it finally opens the momentum sends both of them tripping and half-falling onto one of the beds. It doesn’t seem to shake Alex’s flow.

“- name is Alexander, won’t stand for slander got a plan that don’t pander, A dot Ham, goddaaamn gotta slam the beat to my main man Laurens-“

He points expectantly at John, who meets the challenge with a grin. This is a game he's always played with Mulligan and Laf, but he's had to take it to new levels since Alex showed up so as not to be outdone. “Ain’t got much that rhymes with Laurens, but I can trip you up with some lines that’s uncommon, ‘cause all my verses come out in torrents, got my foreign best friend and six arrest warrants!”

“That’s not even true,” Alex says, collapsing into impressed laughter anyway. His eyebrows go all out of control when he laughs proper, always so expressive. John touches one of them gently, trying to see if that happiness will tingle tangibly through his fingertips. Alex blinks slowly at him. The room is dark but Alex’s eyes are shining through it, his eyes are so lovely, Alex is so lovely-

“Laurens,” says Alex, in a whisper, in a breath that ghosts John’s name over his own lips. There’s a tug deep and low inside him, a wildfire chased immediately by an icy flash-flood of fear as he recognises what that feeling means. Oh no, oh fuck, oh no. This can’t happen, not here, not now, not Alex.

He stands up hurriedly, wishing that the moment had sobered him up more, but he still wobbles on his feet, dizzy and witless and cold. Alex stares up at him, surprised.

“I’m going to sleep,” John says, more abrupt than he meant to be.

“Did I do something?”

“No. You’re fine, we’re fine, I’m just drunk. I’m just tired.” He knows how unconvincing he must sound. He faces the opposite wall as he climbs into bed.

“Laurens?…John?” An unhappy sound. “…Good night, Laurens.”

John squeezes his eyes shut as tight as he can.

 

***

 

It’d be a blessing to be the kind of person who forgets drunk nights the next day, but the first image in John’s pounding head when he wakes up is Alex’s hair falling messily out of its ponytail, catching silver-white in the moonlight through the window while he made up stupid rhymes last night.

John shoves his pillow over his face, either to hide from the creeping sun or in an attempt to smother himself. Oh, this really wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s not that he feels in danger: he doesn't think Alex would ever tell anyone if he found out, he’s pretty sure he’s safe in that sense. But he knows how this would change things, how much he would ruin.

It’s ruined already, just a little. Over breakfast he tries to act normal, but with every comment Alex directs towards him, all he can think is of the way Alex’s hand fit in his own, of pressing his fingers to those lips to see how it feels when Alex talks so prettily to him.

Alex is the closest friend he’s got. How cruel life is sometimes, to give him this and then twist it into something impossible. How selfish of John to want more in the first place.

His replies come out curt and clipped, and he can see Alex getting more confused and hurt each time. Lafayette is tapping his fingers on the table and glancing between the two of them, clearly uncomfortable with the weird atmosphere. Mulligan is frowning at him. He needs to get out of here.

“I gotta do the thing,” he says, not even trying, and takes off. Behind him he hears Mulligan say “Goddamn, kid, that was some cold shouldering. What happened last night?! ”

“I’m not sure,” Alex says flatly. “but I might have some idea.”

John hopes to hell he doesn't.

 

***

 

It’s easy enough to avoid Alex during the day, but since they share a room it’s inevitable that John will have to confront the problem at some point. That point comes late in the evening, when John is sat listlessly on his bed and Alex slams the door open with unnecessary drama.

“We need to talk,” he says, closing the door and locking it behind him. He drops heavily onto the other bed. “Because I don't know what I did, I honestly don’t remember much but I think I probably did something, and if it’s what I think it was then I just want you to know that I’m so sorry, and it’ll never happen again but I understand if you don’t want to-“

What?

Alex isn’t looking at him, unlacing his boots and taking far too much care about positioning them by his bed, clearly trying to busy his nervous hands.

“Hold the fuck up, Alex. I have no idea what you think happened, but if I’ve been weird today it’s really not because of you. You didn’t do anything.”

“I…oh. I didn’t?”

John shakes his head. “Uh, can I ask what it is that you thought you did, exactly?”

Alex looks spooked. “Um. Nothing?”

“Alexander.”

He pushes himself up off the bed, crossing his arms protectively over his chest. “I don’t…it’s probably best if I don’t say. I don’t want to lose you, Laurens, I can’t.”

John stands too, taking a step towards him. “You couldn’t say anything that would make me want to stop having you as my friend.”

“Ha. Well. Maybe there’s nothing I could say, but I’m quite sure theres some things I could do, and if…if I make this real, I don’t think I could stop myself. You don’t want to open that door. Trust me.”

They’re standing so close now, and Alex sounds so sad, eyes fixed on something unseen in the distance. John can’t move away. John doesn’t want to move away, because if he’s reading this right…oh, he’s hopeful, he has too much hope.

“Try me,” he says. Alex looks at him, and he meets the gaze steady.

When Alex surges in to kiss him he's already expecting it, returns it eagerly. No softness between them, not the careful first steps of courting. It’s the first moments of a fight, just rushing noise through his brain and the constant balance between _do what it takes to survive_ and _but if this is what ends me, so be it_. There’s no time to think about it, neither of them have ever taken their time about anything: John is against the wall, his tongue is licking deep in Alex’s mouth. Alex’s hands are underneath his shirt, tugging it off, then getting rid of his own as fast as he can so that he can bring his hands to claw down John's spine, hard enough that it'll leave marks. God, it's good. John bites down on Alex’s collarbone in retaliation, undoes his pants and lets them drop to the floor as he wraps a hand around Alex’s dick. Alex makes a high, shocked noise next to his ear.

It feels so good to touch him like this, to feel how hard and hot he is but it filters in fast that Alex is tense and trembling in all the wrong ways. When John shifts to look at his face, Alex’s eyes are shut too tightly, his mouth pressed into a thin line. John brings his hand away, sharpish.

“Woah, Alex. Alex, if you don't want this, I need you to tell me.”

“No! God, no, I - I _want_. So much, it’s too much.”

John tries to press back into the wall a little, uncertain of whether he should try and step away completely to give Alex some space, but Alex is still clinging to him. “I want to make you feel good, I only want this if you’ll like it, Alex, it’s okay if-“

“Laurens,” Alex half-growls, half-groans, pulling himself close enough that their legs are almost entwined. “I want you. I - do you know how hard it was not to, when every word you say shakes through me like thunder, every touch from you is lightning singing in my veins?” He presses until John can feel how hard he is against him as if to prove his point, cuts himself off with a stuttered moan. “Ngh. I thought I couldn’t have you, and now I’m at the mercy of the storm. I want, but what you’re giving me is more than I know how to take.”

John is dazed, but Alex has started to move in a slow, needy rhythm and makes a pleased little “ah!” sound. It ripples through John from head to toe, urging him to move. He puts his hands on Alex’s hips, shifts to help him find the friction he needs, careful not to push too much. He can’t help the semi-feral smile on his face, the desire to be that sweeping storm that ruins Alex so perfectly.

“Always such a skilful mouth, Alexander. I wonder what else you’d do with it if I asked.”

“John,” Alex gasps, hands scrabbling at John's back. “John, if you asked, I would even be silent.” John presses a savage, open-mouthed kiss on Alex’s neck, feels the fluttering pulse race under his tongue. “Fuck!”

“I’d never ask that,” John pants. “I like hearing you.”

“You just like knowing what - _ah_ \- you’re doing to me, how much you can take me apart,” Alex says, with a breathless laugh. “Egotist.”

“I like hearing you all the time,” says John. Alex suddenly pushes against his shoulders, moving him back so they can see each others faces clearly, though he doesn’t stop grinding on John’s leg.

“You really do, don’t you?” Alex says, full of wonder, as though he’s only just noticed that John would listen to every sound and syllable that Alex’s kiss-reddened mouth saw fit to share with him. “You - _yes_ \- you don’t mind at all that I talk so much.”

“You create worlds, Alex,” John says. “I’d follow you through all of them.”

“A thousand worlds and I still wouldn’t be able to give you all you deserve with words alone, John Laurens.” Alex sounds genuinely regretful, then his eyes turn wicked, and he pulls loose the tie of John’s pants smoothly. “But even if you won’t ask it, I’ll willingly silence myself for you.”

He drops to the ground, tugging down John’s pants as he goes. There’s a moment of concentration, like he’s sizing up a battlefield, before he licks a broad line up John’s dick in an experimental sort of way.

“Oh, fuck,” says John, all poetic sentiment gone. Confidence evidently bolstered, Alex takes him in his mouth, closes his fist around what he can’t manage and pulls, twists, licks. “Holy shit, holy fuck -“

Alex looks up through his long, long lashes and John can feel the edge of his smirk around his dick.

“You’re lookin’ real smug for a guy on his knees like that,” John says, but it comes out too raw to have any effect other than making Alex look even more smug, flicking his tongue and then going down deeper. And now it's John who is lost in the storm, John is a shipwreck and the sea that surrounds him is Alex, Alex, only Alex and his mouth and the furrow of concentration on his brow, and when John comes hard and startling it’s like drowning and breaking through the surface of the waves all at once.

Steadying himself against the wall, he groans out “ _God_ ” as Alex scrambles back up, wiping at his mouth. They entwine back together like they had before, Alex moving more frantically, breathing more harshly. There’s salt in his kisses. It’s only himself he’s tasting, but something in John’s mind says _the ocean_ , and it seems like the truth.

John drops his hand low in the soft v-shape of Alex’s hips, waiting for permission, but Alex just covers it with one of his own, still riding helplessly back and forth against John like he can’t stop himself. “No, too much, too much. I can - just let me-“

“Just this?” John asks, moving his knee to press more firmly between Alex’s legs. Alex makes a shattered noise and says “yes, _this_ ”, and so John flips them round to slam Alex into the wall, earning a sharp exhale. He looks desperate and radiant, he’s sunlight under John’s touch. John wants to keep him forever, wants to say _this is mine, this is for me, I can have you like this always._

He pulls Alex’s arms above his head and with one hand against Alex’s wrists holds him there tightly, braces his knee against the wall. When Alex shifts gently to test John’s grip and finds no give whatsoever he screws his eyes closed, rocks harder into him and says in a broken voice, “I’m so close, I’m gonna-“

“Yes, come on, do it, I got you,” John babbles, not listening to what he’s saying, too busy staring at Alex pinned and open in front of him. “You’re mine, you’re beautiful, come on, Alexander-“ and he winds Alex’s thick, dark hair round his free palm and pulls hard at it. Alex arches til his whole weight is held up by John’s leg, clenches his thighs and comes with a high keening that he muffles in John’s shoulder.

For a long few moments they stand sweat-damp and panting, waiting to catch their balance on the new axis they’ve suddenly found themselves spinning round, until John’s leg cramps and he lowers Alex gently down with a hiss. He practically falls onto the nearest bed while Alex shakily dampens a rag with water from the jug by the basin in the corner and makes a half-hearted attempt to clean them both up, before giving up and climbing in next to him.

“Well, fuck,” Alex says. John makes a noise of heartfelt agreement and draws him in close, lets Alex murmurs to him about nothing, about his work and the sun on the sea back in Nevis, about John’s hair and John’s freckles and the first friends he’s ever had. John listens, fingers gently brushing Alex’s lips, revelling in selfishness, thinking how kind life is sometimes, that this can be his.

**Author's Note:**

> [a/n: well that's officially the first smut i've ever written so if you need to leave a comment send it to me hiding inside my tshirt til i stop blushing
> 
> come hang out with me at thisstableground on tumblr, sometimes i draw things there]


End file.
